


a cut above the rest

by Alyeska_Writes



Series: the hairdresser zuko AU nobody asked for [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Azula (Avatar) Needs a Hug, Childhood Trauma, Don't ask me why, Haircuts, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Iroh (Avatar) is a Good Uncle, Past Jet/Zuko (Avatar), Sibling Bonding, Zuko is a Hairdresser, Zuko the Long-Suffering, azula chops her own hair, but still, i guess, i mean like same, like recent past, rated T because i said fuck, she's having a crisis okay, zuko and azula Went Trough It as kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25566319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alyeska_Writes/pseuds/Alyeska_Writes
Summary: “I am home alone,” Azula explains. Zuko is rightfully suspicious when he answers,“Okay…?”“And I was having a crisis.”“I mean, same, so fair enough. You okay?”“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine! But…”“I don’t like where this is going.”“So I was doing my hair.”“Azula…”“And I was getting frustrated.”“Please don’t tell me…”“…and there may or may not have been scissors sitting on the counter.”Silence on the other end of the line. She can practically see the look of horror on Zuko’s face.“…you didn’t.”“I did.”Or: Azula chops her hair and only Zuko can fix it.OR: the hairdresser zuko au nobody asked for
Series: the hairdresser zuko AU nobody asked for [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1852777
Comments: 18
Kudos: 240





	a cut above the rest

**Author's Note:**

> yeah so my sister was cutting my hair the other day, and at the time i hadn't slept in over 24 hours. so. this happened. i don't even know what This is. but y'know what? i'm posting it. and i'm sticking with hairdresser zuko. i don't...i don't know. it's just something i latched onto and, well, y'all know me. enjoy my mess :)

Azula should not, under any circumstances, be left to her own devices. She has this habit, you see, of being, how one would say… _impulsive_. And, as it turns out, impulsivity and crises don’t mix well together. Azula could have told you that, but then, she has trouble remembering as such most of the time.

Look, it wasn’t supposed to be that big of a deal. She was trying different hairstyles for this stupid event coming up that Ty Lee desperately wanted to go to. What she didn’t remember, is that whenever she was having a crisis in the past, she took it out on her hair. Or at least, she tried to. There _was_ that other time she bleached it by herself, and fixing it was a _nightmare._ The other times, though, there was an adult (or a Zuko) around to keep her from doing something stupid.

But now Azula is an adult.

And she’s impulsive.

And she’s having a crisis. 

And she’s frustrated.

And she’s home alone.

And the scissors are _right there_.

Scissors + Home Alone + Frustrated + Crisis + Impulsivity = Disaster Waiting to Strike. It’s basic math.

And strike it does. Without a thought, she’s grabbing the scissors, and taking out all her frustration and rage on her bangs. Well, they weren’t exactly _bangs_ before but they certainly are _now..._ in a manner of speaking. She watches the scraps of hair fall to the sink, and she stares at them. And then stares a little more. And then stares a _lot_ more.

And then it hits her.

The sight that greets her when she glances back up is…well, horrific is the word her brother would use. She’s not sure she’d go _that_ far but it…yeah, it’s really bad. Uneven doesn’t seem like the right word for it. It’s a mess, is what it is. Fixing it is, obviously, well out of reach for her. Given that she was the one that just butchered it.

Her brother, the _cosmetologist,_ is going to have a fit. Azula almost doesn’t want to tell him. She almost wants to go to a salon and get it fixed and tell Zuko that she just wanted a new look when he asks, because he _will_ ask. But then, as proficient a liar as Azula knows she is, Zuko mastered the subtle art of seeing through her bullshit a long time ago.

(They were unruly teens with plenty of shared childhood trauma, so it comes as exactly no surprise to anyone that Zuko’s hip to her nearly nonexistent tells.)

Also, it’ll hurt his feelings if she goes to someone else.

And, she refuses to leave the house like this. Although the prospect of explaining this to a total stranger rather than her brother is more desirable at first, Azula knows that Zuko will ask the least amount of questions when the word ‘crisis’ leaves her lips, as it undoubtedly will, and while he’ll bitch about The Chop Job the entire time he’s fixing it, at least he won’t go talking shit behind her back to his coworkers.

(Yeah, Azula rarely goes to anyone else for her hair for That Specific Reason. The family discount is just an added bonus.)

It’s his day off anyway, right? Right. And as far as Azula knows he doesn’t have any plans for the time being. So it’s fine. It’s fine! She doesn’t stall even a little bit as she scrolls to his contact. Nope.

He answers on the second ring,

“Hey. Everything alright?”

“Does something have to be wrong for me to call you?” Azula demands.

“Usually? Yes. What’s up?”

Fair point.

“So…”

“Yes…?”

“ _So…_ ”

“ _Yes…?_ ” 

“I am home alone,” Azula explains. Zuko is rightfully suspicious when he answers,

“Okay…?”

“And I was having a crisis.”

“I mean, same, so fair enough. You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine! But…”

“I don’t like where this is going.”

“So I was doing my hair.”

“Azula…”

“And I was getting frustrated.”

“Please don’t tell me…”

“…and there may or may not have been scissors sitting on the counter.”

Silence on the other end of the line. She can practically see the look of horror on Zuko’s face.

“…you didn’t.”

“I did.”

The sigh he lets out is entirely too long-suffering. But then, Azula’s far past the age where she should need constant supervision, lest she commit what she is now calling The Choppening.

“I’ll be right over.”

Thank _god._

For the fifteen minutes it takes Zuko to get from his apartment to the one Azula shares with Ty Lee, the younger sibling avoids all mirrors. She could almost forget that she turned her hair into the Monstrosity, but then she feels her uneven, choppy bangs and she Remembers. Well, it could be worse. It’s certainly not as horrible as the bleach incident from a few years ago.

The front door opens, and Azula marches herself right out to greet him, hands on her hips. So maybe she’s starting to see the humor in this, because she knows it’s not the end of the world and she will, in fact, be okay, and maybe she’s grinning a grin that’s entirely too cheeky, but it’s all worth it to see the look on Zuko’s face when he sees The Bangs.

“Why…” he begins, and looks like he’s having trouble finding the words. “Why would you…? You know what, I stopped asking myself why you do the things you do when you were like, fourteen.”

“I am incredibly unique and you would be extremely bored without me,” Azula tells him.

“Or I’d have like, fifty less migraines a week,” again, he makes a fair point. “Anyway, I’m here to save your hair, so, go sit.”

It’s amusing to her sometimes how her brother takes this so seriously. But then, she’s not a hairdresser, so what does she know? The cape and the spray bottle and the wholeass bag of supplies are probably necessary, even if Azula can’t tell the difference between each pair of shears, or why you’d _need_ different shears.

Again, this is totally and completely not Azula’s thing. Which is why she should not do her hair. Ever. Especially not when there are scissors within reach. As she has established. One would think that by now she should have learned to wait until Zuko has spare time or until Ty Lee comes home, but here they are.

As much as Zuko huffs like he’s personally offended as he sets up in the kitchen (but why cut hair where one prepares food? It’s not a tiny kitchen, no, but still—) but he’s always loved a challenge, and, well, Azula presented him with one, certainly. For someone who’s only got one good eye, he’s damn good, too. Not that Azula would admit that out loud.

As she sits, her brother drapes the cape over her shoulders, and the sigh is audible when he pulls the rest of her hair out over it.

“What?” she demands.

“You’ve always had the best hair in the family, which is so unfair because you don’t take care of it,” he answers. 

“I do too!” Azula defends.

“Well, you wash it and brush it, at least.”

“Is that not taking care of it?”

“Azula please,” Zuko probably means to sound affronted as he says that, Azula is certain, but it comes out sounding amused. If she looks back, she’s sure he’ll be wearing that half smile of his when he’s trying his best _not_ to smile. “Anyway, I’m taking your dead ends off too, is that okay?”

“Yeah, obviously.”

“Sweet,” without preamble, Zuko grabs the spray bottle and sets to work. Something Azula has always appreciated is how he doesn’t yank half her hair out of her head when he combs it. Sensitive heads run in the family, or something like that.

“Where’s Ty Lee?” he asks, eventually.

“Dance practice,” Azula answers. “Comp is coming up soon.”

“Damn, that’s right. Does she ever take a beak? Let someone else win first place for once, shit.”

If Azula is beaming with pride then, well, that’s nobody’s business.

“Yes but, if she’s better than everyone why not show off?”

“Not…quite how I’d put it, but still valid.”

Damn right.

Silence settles over them again. Surprisingly, it’s not awkward. They didn’t exactly…get along, until they were both in their teens, and Azula is loath to admit it, but she’s glad they’re not at odds like they used to be. Because it’s nice to have someone in her corner, and she can ask stupid questions and tease him and he won’t be _too_ offended. Questions like,

“So…how are things going with Jet?” The groan that answers her sounds both disgusted and frustrated. “Oh, that well?”

“Don’t ask,” Zuko sighs. “He’s a douchebag.”

“You can’t say things like ‘don’t ask’ and then call him a douchebag in the same sentence. You already hooked me, now I need the details, Zuzu. Come on, you know how this works.”

For what it’s worth, at least he huffs out something that resembles a chuckle.

“So, apparently, because I wasn’t putting out—,”

“More than I probably needed to know, but valid as fuck.”

“Thank you. Anyway, he decided that, instead of talking to me about setting boundaries like a fucking adult, he had to get it from someone else.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“ _No._ ”

“It’s true. Wanna know who it was with?”

“Yes. Tell me now.”

“A girl I work with.”

Hold on, _hold on._ So if Azula has her facts straight, Jet, this charming guy that Zuko was so head over heels for, had _Zuko,_ who is kind and sensitive and sweet, and cheated on him. With someone from the salon no less.

“I’m gonna knock his teeth out,” Azula decides. “What the fuck. I mean, what the _fuck?_ ”

“Oh it gets better,” Zuko continues. “Or worse, depending on how you look at it.”

“ _How?_ ”

“Maybe, like, an hour before I found out, he was trying to be sweet, you know how cheating ass boyfriends do when they don’t want you to know that they’re cheating? And he said to me, and I quote, ‘You’re so handsome, even with your scar’.”

It’s probably a really good thing that Zuko hadn’t actually started cutting hair, because Azula whirls around in her seat to face him.

“He did _not._ ”

To his credit, Zuko, again, looks vaguely amused. But it must’ve hurt. It _had_ to have. Insensitivity towards his scar always hurts him. Azula can recall one specific fight she got into in high school because of that. At the time, he was just barely at a place where he was starting to accept himself and the scar upon his face, and it had tossed him all the way back to square one. Azula still maintains that her anger had been righteous. Because it _was._

“Oh, he did,” Zuko answers. “But it’s alright, because Suki kneed him in the crotch, so it’s even.”

“Good,” Azula beams, and turns back around. “He deserves it. Still gonna kick his ass, though.”

“Valid,” Zuko chuckles. “But he’s not worth it.”

“So?”

“Right. I forget that’s never stopped you.”

It sounds like an accusation, but it’s playful at the same time.

Zuko makes quick work of snipping away the dead ends, and moves around to confront the Beast. Now, Azula has never gone for a face frame before. In high school, the two strands that hung down on either side of her face was her iconic Look, but that’s different. Zuko regards the uneven wisps of hair for a moment before asking,

“How do you feel about blunt bangs? Like what Mai has but maybe a little shorter.”

A shrug pulls at Azula’s shoulders, because honestly she doesn’t put much thought into what her hair looks like. She wants it to look good, of course, but usually she pulls it into a bun or a ponytail and goes on about her day.

“Go for it,” she answers.

Zuko grins at that. Who knew hair could make him so happy? Well, that _is_ his job, Azula supposes. It quickly melts into a look of concentration, brow furrowing as he sets to work. Azula could almost laugh; he always had the same look since he was little. Intense and extremely focused, even if he was only trying to concentrate on coloring inside the lines. 

Azula watches little clippings of hair falling onto the cape and down onto the floor. It feels weird. Like a big change that she forced herself into, which is silly, because it’s just bangs. It’s not like Azula chopped all her hair off and dyed it (although Zuko is very fond of saying, 'You dye Easter eggs and color hair'. Twerp.) Still…

Another snip here, and a final snip there, and Zuko stands back, sets the shears down, and crosses his arms, triumphant.

“Okay, I can’t wait for you to see this, because it’s actually really cute. Let me blow dry it real quick and you can look.”

It’s funny, because Zuko’s excitement and the pride he takes in his handiwork gives Azula the confidence that she didn’t know she needed. She wiggles in her seat, impatient, as Zuko plugs in the hairdryer (because of course he brought his own) and sets back to work. And Azula finds herself annoyed that her hair takes as long as it does to even blow dry (don’t mention air drying) because she wants to _see_ damn it. But she can be patient. For the most part.

After what seems like an hour (ten minutes though, tops) Zuko turns off the hairdryer, pulls the cape off of Azula’s shoulders and shakes it off before putting it and the rest of his things away.

“Alright, go look while I clean up.”

Azula would be lying if she said she wasn’t hasty as she ventured to the bathroom.

She…doesn’t actually know how to feel about it at first. She almost looks like a completely different person. They’re just _bangs_ but they change her face, almost. It’s after she gets used to the fact that she takes a better look, and…yeah. Yeah, she likes them! It’s not a look she thought she’d ever go for, but it’s flattering. It’s weird how drastic a change it can seem like but it’s nice, Azula decides.

By the time she finishes admiring her reflection and heads back to the kitchen, Zuko already has his supplies neatly packed away and he’s done sweeping the floor. When he looks up, he smiles and asks,

“Do you like it?”

“Yes, yes I do,” Azula replies. They’ve never been huggy, not really, so she settles for resting her head on his shoulder briefly, saying, as sweetly as she can, “Thank you, Zuzu.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he huffs, though somewhat amused. “But call me next time, _before_ you assault your own hair.”

“No promises.”

“Azula—,”

“Kidding! I solemnly swear I will never again butcher my own hair without first consulting you.”

“That’s a piecrust promise, but I’ll take it.”

Azula snorts, and Zuko bumps her shoulder. It’s strange, sometimes, thinking about their childhood and how close they are now. She thinks maybe if Uncle Iroh didn’t step in when he did amidst his brother’s failing marriage and the rage he took out on his children, they would’ve turned out a lot worse than they did. She also thinks maybe if Dad didn’t do what he did to Zuko and Mom didn’t treat Azula the way she did, they wouldn’t have been in a position where their uncle had to grab custody at all, but…

“Hey,” Zuko says, pulling her out of her thoughts. “Wanna tell me what this crisis was about?”

She knew he’d ask eventually. The difference between him and most other people being that, if Azula didn’t want to talk about it, they wouldn’t. Something they both learned from their uncle: don’t pressure someone into talking about something they’re not ready to talk about. The question he often asked was ‘do you want to talk about it or do you want a distraction?’ and it really, _really_ helped. 

(So did family therapy, but that’s just a given.)

So Azula thinks for a moment. Part of her doesn’t want to talk about it, but part of her does, too. It’s kind of hazy, but she knows it wasn’t just about her hair. She remembers looking into the mirror, she remembers idly thinking about how she had hair a lot like Mom’s and then—

Oh.

“Mom,” she answers. Zuko nods his understanding. Yeah, he was always close with her, but the older he got, the more he came to understand where Azula was coming from and why she felt the way she did. It was the same for her, coming to similar conclusions about their father. Only Zuko’s scars are out there for everyone to see, where all of Azula's are on the inside. “I just…the older I get, the more I look like her. And sometimes that bothers me? I don’t…want to be like her? And then I got to thinking about how much I’m like Dad sometimes and like, _fuck that._ I want to be like him even less than I want to be like Mom, and like…they both treated us like shit, Zu. They used us as weapons against each other in their divorce, they were petty and—and I know we hashed all of this out with Uncle Iroh and our therapist _years_ ago but…I dunno. I think about this shit sometimes, and I get so fucking angry, and sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if Uncle Iroh didn’t grab custody, and…yeah.”

Azula’s head has found Zuko’s shoulder again, as if just talking about it is exhausting. It always has been, though. She remembers coming home from one particular therapy session one night and passing out until noon the next day. That was a hard one, certainly.

Zuko is silent for several moments, and Azula can practically hear the wheels turning in his head as he formulates his response. Subconsciously, he reaches up and gently touches his scar, and just when Azula starts to feel bad for invoking those memories, just when she opens her mouth to apologize, Zuko sighs, and rests his head against hers.

“I get it,” he answers, quietly. “I think about it all more than I’d like to admit. I’m still bitter, and angry. The older I get the angrier I am with Mom, but like…it changes, day by day, y’know? Like for a solid week every now and then it’s like I’m playing a game of ‘Who Can I Be Pissed at Most?’ and it’s—fucking exhausting. I’m pissed at Mom for being cold to you the way she was, I’m pissed at Dad for obvious reasons, and…yeah. I completely get where you’re coming from.”

She’s glad he does. She didn’t doubt it for a second, but…yeah. She can talk it out with Mai and Ty Lee and even Suki all day long, but when it comes right down to it, none of them understand her quite like Zuko does. It helps, sometimes, to have someone who was there with her, and Azula is confident that her brother feels the same way.

“Yeah…” Azula sighs. “Hey, Zuzu?”

“Yeah?”

“I appreciate you. You big dumb loser.”

His laugh is a boisterous thing, and sometimes, Azula thinks, a lot like Uncle’s.

“I appreciate you too, you gremlin.”

Azula grins, and decides that, as far as dorky older brothers go, she could certainly have been stuck with worse.

**Author's Note:**

> so yeah, that got super heavy towards the end. wasn't expecting that but y'know what i'm not even mad. let zuko and azula heal together. also normalize realizing that the way ursa treated azula was Not Okay. 
> 
> anyway, i'm on twitter as [@AlyeskaWrites ](https://twitter.com/AlyeskaWrites)


End file.
